Category: Karen Bradley MP

Not for the faint-hearted. Contains intense violence, blood and gore, strong language and Philip Hammond.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

The aftermath of Chequers saw the ratings of every single Cabinet member fall. It was its worst collective performance to date. But it is a measure of how shocking our latest monthly results are that those members would be justified in tumbling to their knees – and begging for those post-Chequers results to be resurrected.

Now, they are joined by Jeremy Wright, David Gauke, Claire Perry, David Lidington, Liam Fox, Amber Rudd – on her return to the top table – Caroline Nokes, Andrea Leadsom, Karen Bradley and, on his debut, by Steve Barclay. Unsweet sixteen.

Yes, that’s sixteen Ministers in the red, rather than six – outnumbering the 13 of its members who get into the black, some of them by tiny margins. No fewer than seven ministers have positive ratings of lower than ten points: James Brokenshire, Gavin Williamson, David Mundell, Alan Cairns, Damian Hinds and, yes, the mighty Michael Gove, who topped the table as recently as June.

Geoffrey Cox led the pack with a 67.5 approval rating last month. He is still top, but his rating is down by about a third. Ditto, roughly, the table’s other top performers, if that label can be used in the same sentence as this dismal return.

And never mind the ratings – look at the falls. Liam Fox was at 35, but is now in negative territory. Andrea Leadsom’s score follows a similar pattern. Penny Mordaunt hasn’t publicly defended the deal. Maybe that’s why she’s still in the black. Just about.

So is there any good news for anyone at all? It depends what you mean. Theresa May’s rating was actually lower after Chequers, but her scores are still horrible: – 48.1 then, – 42 this month (she was – 42.3 last month, since you ask). However, Philip Hammond is at -46.7, which must be a new low, even for him.

Ruth Davidson would have cause to think, as she gives Baby Finn a cuddle: what’s the point of coming back?

Rather than going over the heads of the Unionist parties, the Government needs to find a way to address their concerns.

Dr David Shiels is a Policy Analyst at Open Europe and also works on contemporary political history.

It is not a happy time for the relationship between the Conservative Party and the DUP. The latter’s decision to abstain on a number of amendments to the Finance Bill and to vote for one Labour amendment on Monday was intended to send a ‘political message’ to the Government. The DUP has stopped short of formally withdrawing from the Confidence and Supply arrangement, but has arguably broken it. The party’s MPs make no secret of their desire to see a change in the Government’s direction – hence the declaration that the agreement is between parties, rather than between leaders. At a time when many Conservative MPs are in a rebellious mood, DUP MPs may feel that they have some leeway in terms of their commitments under that agreement anyway.

While the DUP’s opposition to the existing Withdrawal Agreement at Westminster is steadfast, the party is coming under increasing criticism for its attitude towards Brexit in Northern Ireland. Business leaders there have taken the almost unprecedented step of coming out against the party on a major policy issue, indicating their support for the Withdrawal Agreement. Importantly, the Ulster Farmers’ Union has also come out in support of the Agreement, whereas it had stopped short of taking a Remain position during the referendum in 2016. This is particularly significant, given the perception that many Unionist farmers privately supported Brexit.

After many months of saying as little as possible about specific arrangements for Northern Ireland, the Government also seems to have found its voice. Karen Bradley’s speech in Belfast on Monday – her first major intervention on Brexit – was a robust defence of the Agreement, and a signal that the Government is prepared to bypass the DUP and appeal directly to public opinion. If anything, the DUP is likely to harden its opposition to the Agreement in the coming weeks, but there is a growing sense that the party has been caught on the back foot over the issue. The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Robin Swann, has accused the DUP of being ‘asleep at the wheel’, and has suggested that the party has ‘failed in their primary duty to protect the integrity of the Union and its people.’

Meanwhile, the pro-Remain parties in Northern Ireland have put forward a convincing case in favour of special treatment for the region. Although Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats at Westminster, the party has claimed that they are standing up for their constituents where it matters – in Dublin and in Brussels. The Government’s preparedness to breach the DUP’s ‘red lines’ over the backstop helps Sinn Fein to make their point, which is that Northern Ireland’s MPs have little influence anyway.

At the same time, there are many other voices in academia, the media and business who argue that the DUP has been inconsistent in its opposition to special treatment for Northern Ireland – pointing to different rules on abortion, same sex marriage and a range of other issues. The argument that ‘Northern Ireland is different anyway’ is persuasive. By seeking to make any GB-NI checks as unobtrusive as possible, the EU has persuaded many that it has gone some way to meeting Unionist concerns. The view that the backstop offers Northern Ireland the ‘best of both worlds’ is widely held and, according to reported comments by the Prime Minister, the EU is concerned that the arrangements would give Northern Ireland a competitive advantage.

The Irish Government also insists that it is not seeking to open up the question of Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom – even though Unionists believe the backstop threatens to undermine Northern Ireland’s relationship with Great Britain within the United Kingdom. The latter’s objections to the backstop also revolve around the democratic and constitutional implications of Northern Ireland potentially being subject to EU rules in the longer-term, without the ability to amend or refuse them. This point has been hard to get across to audiences in Great Britain and there is a feeling that the party had taken for granted that its objections to the backstop would be understood.

There remains, of course, a possibility that the DUP’s opposition will see off the backstop, either now by helping to defeat the Withdrawal Agreement in Parliament or at a later date, during the negotiations on the future relationship. Although the party is unhappy with things as they stand, its persistence has at least ensured that some of the more objectionable aspects of the EU’s February proposal have been removed. There may yet be some way that the Government can secure further assurances for Northern Ireland, either in terms of beefed-up commitments to find a technological solution for the border, or by securing a role for the Northern Ireland Assembly as a democratic lock on the backstop. For the DUP, there remains the ‘nuclear option’ of triggering a confidence vote in the Government, or coming as near as they can to doing so in order to persuade Conservative MPs to change their leader.

It may be that the DUP will be proven right in the end – that influence at Westminster does matter and that Unionist objections to the backstop cannot be overridden. At the same time, it seems unlikely that Theresa May or any other Prime Minister could secure any fundamental changes to the backstop. Rather than going over the heads of the DUP and the other Unionist parties, the Government needs to find a way to address their concerns and bring them along as far as possible. This is necessary not just to deliver the Agreement through Parliament, but also because any deal that is seen as a defeat for Unionism will make it harder to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland. At this stage, too, DUP MPs need to think about what sort of arrangements they can live with, rather than re-opening the whole negotiation. They have grounds for complaint against the backstop as it stands, which remains objectionable from a Unionist point of view. But the alternative of No Deal would be extremely hard to defend in Northern Ireland, given the short-term consequences of such an outcome.

The Prime Minister has eschewed the chance to bind waverers with patronage in favour of promoting able loyalists who won’t make trouble.

This afternoon the Government announced three junior appointments to fill the vacancies left by yesterday’s resignations.

Stephen Hammond – Minister of State, Health & Social Care

In some ways, this is a bit of a surprise. With Theresa May facing a make-or-break Commons vote on her Brexit deal, one might have expected her to use this opportunity to buy off one or two of the wavering rebels with a little patronage – as premiers are wont to do.

Hammond certainly gave the Government trouble on earlier votes, but at this point he’s a pro-deal ex-Remain voice on the backbenches. Whether or not this decision represents optimism or merely fatalism on May’s part remains to be seen.

Notwithstanding all that, however, he is a very experienced former minister who has been keen to return to Government. Combined with his antipathy to the European Research Group, it therefore seems unlikely that he’s going to cause any trouble by resigning.

John Penrose – Minister of State, Northern Ireland

Another able former minister, Penrose is a slightly odd case on things Brexit. Described by the BBC as “ardently pro-Remain“, he has nonetheless signed off letters from the European Research Group in the past.

Another loyalist, the Public Whip reports that Penrose has only once rebelled against the Government in the current Parliament. Significantly, however, that was on a piece of Northern Irish legislation: namely an amendment aiming to force Karen Bradley, his new boss, to justify how officials could continue to implement the Province’s strict abortion laws.

Not only is this another opportunity not taken to bind waverers to the Government line, therefore, but it is also another indication that the Prime Minister is prepared to further aggravate the Democratic Unionists – and perhaps change Northern Irish policy, too. Quite how this administration could continue to govern until 2022 without them is another matter.

Kwasi Kwarteng – Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Exiting the European Union

Unlike Hammond and Penrose, Kwarteng is a Brexiteer and supported a Leave vote during the referendum. His elevation is nonetheless effectively an internal promotion as far as the numbers go, as he was previously serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Philip Hammond.

He now shoulders the burden of trying to help his new boss, Steve Barclay, in preparing to wind up the Brexit department and – in the seemingly likely event that the withdrawal agreement is voted down by the Commons – preparing the nation for No Deal.

Also: Scottish Tories attack SNP over income tax ‘gap’; no boost for Plaid from new leader; and DUP’s Brexit donation given a clean bill of legal health.

Fresh criticism for Bradley over ’embarrassing’ meeting with local parties

Karen Bradley has had another bad week, with the Northern Irish press excoriating her over an ’embarrassing’ meeting with ocal parties which some present branded a “waste of time”.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that relations between the Secretary of State and local politicians are now worse than ever, something which can only hinder her ongoing bid to get the devolved assembly back on its feet. Last week she challenged them to stop grandstanding and return to government in an op-ed for the paper. There was one small sign of progress when Sinn Fein indicated that they would accept Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, returning as First Minister.

Unfortunately, this is not the only time that Bradley has been accused of not spending enough time at important events, having also been criticised for giving an under-whelming speech at an important UK-Irish event before leaving abruptly. In an editorial the Belfast Telegraph drew withering comparisonsalso between her and some of her predecessors, and another writer reports that “in this deepening crisis, the Secretary of State is being seen more and more as the problem.”

But the pain was at least spread around a little this week. Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, has been strongly criticised by Northern Irish business groups for failing to engage with their concerns over our departure from the EU. He has been pressed on why he didn’t meet representatives of affected sectors, including manufacturing, freight, retail, and food and drink, on a recent visit.

Nicola Sturgeon has refused to pass on the tax cuts announced in the Budget to Scottish taxpayers – and the Tories have seized the opportunity to go on the offensive.

The Scotsman reports that Jackson Carlaw, who is standing in for Ruth Davidson whilst she is on maternity leave, pressed the First Minister on the fact that Scots now face paying £1,000 extra in income tax every year compared to counterparts in England. He also called Sturgeon ‘out of touch’, and credited that with the Conservatives’ newly-regained strength in what was once the Nationalist heartland of north-eastern Scotland.

One of those new MPs, Andrew Bowie, who represents West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, also criticised the devolved administration’s high tax approach – and was counter-attacked by the SNP for being ‘anti-devolution’, according to the Press & Journal.

In other Scottish Tory news, the Prime Minister has promised them that the UK will be out of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy by 2020, before the crucial Holyrood elections of 2021.

Nationalists call for even war to require devolved consent

The devocrat push to reduce the UK to a dysfunctional confederation continued this week when Plaid Cymru called for the Welsh Assembly to be given a veto on the deployment of British troops overseas.

Fortunately both the Conservatives and Labour figures pushed back against these proposals, according to the BBC, the latter emphasising how it would complicate some of the defence treaties and alliances the UK is party to.

This is one of the first policy stories out of the Welsh nationalists since they elected their new leader, Adam Price, who met with Theresa May in Downing Street last week. Such harder-edged nationalist positions will complicate the hope, nurtured by some Welsh Conservatives, that his leadership might make a Con-Nat pact to oust Labour viable in Cardiff Bay.

ITV have also reported on a new Welsh political poll indicating that, in the words of Professor Roger Awan-Scully, “the installation of their new leader has not generated any momentum for them at all.” It also shows that the Conservatives have sufficiently improved their position relative to 2017 to regain Vale of Clwyd and capture Wrexham from Labour.

In the aftermath of the EU referendum, the Democratic Unionists came under scrutiny from Remain-leaning outlets (primarily openDemocracy) about a substantial donation they received from a group called the Constitutional Research Council.

As well as trying to drum up concern by implying it might have had something to do with the Saudi intelligence services, there was also a slightly absurd effort to persuade people that the DUP even getting involved in mainland campaigning was somehow suspicious.

I dealt with the latter argument at the time – in a UK-wide referendum there is absolutely no reason for the DUP to confine its efforts to Northern Ireland – and this week the Electoral Commission have also ruled that, for all its being ‘dark’, the CRC’s donation was entirely legal.

We have occasionally seen precipitous falls in Cabinet members’ scores. Vertiginous rises are rarer. Indeed, it is hard to think of a jump quite like it.

When our last Cabinet League Table was published, Geoffrey Cox had neither made his ringing speech to the Conservative Party Conference, nor yet brought a new clarity in Cabinet to what comes before it from the Brexit negotiations. And though he was sat mid-table, his rating was a modest + 11.

This month, it soars by almost 60 points to take him to the table’s top. We have occasionally seen precipitous falls in Cabinet members’ scores. Vertiginous rises are rarer. Indeed, it is hard to think of a jump quite like it. We may now even get a Cox-for-leader ramp, though our view is that he is well placed to take over, in due course, at Justice.

The Attorney General has clearly raised great expectations among the pro-Brexit generality of party members. But their approval is not confined to those who campaigned for Leave during the EU referendum. Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt are second and third. The Foreign Secretary’s rating has scarcely moved. The Home Secretary’s has actually risen slightly.

Dominic Raab is now fourth. Esther McVey has slid: that will be the impact of the Universal Credit row. Gavin Williamson is out of negative territory. We suspect that Philip Hammond’s score would have been higher had the survey gone out post rather than pre-Budget, but the Softer Brexiteers, as usual, take a pasting, with the Prime Minister’s score down on last month.

Cox agrees to meet campaigners against ‘witch-hunt’ of Ulster veterans

Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, has been enjoying a rapid ascent to fan-favourite status after a star turn on the conference stage and some high-profile leadership against bids to fudge the Irish backstop.

This is only likely to be furthered by the news that, as reported in the Sun, he has agreed to meet representatives of the strong Tory campaign against the ‘witch hunt’ of ex-servicemen who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Over 150 Conservative MPs and peers have signed a letter to May attacking proposals for another round of historical investigations into the conduct of British security forces in the Province, calling for veterans to be offered “lasting legal protection” from further harassment – and accusing the Government of breaking the Military Covenant.

Mark Francois, a former defence minister, has joined the chorus of MPs urging the Prime Minister to take action, according to the News Letter.

The prosecution of now-elderly former soldiers is especially fraught in the aftermath of the revelation that many “on-the-run” terror suspects had been granted a de facto amnesty by the Government under the so-called “comfort letter” scheme.

May invites Plaid leader for talks in Downing Street

Wales Online reports that Adam Price, the newly-elected leader of Plaid Cymru, held face-to-face talks with Theresa May in Number Ten this week.

The Welsh nationalists currently hold four seats in the House of Commons, and may have a crucial role to play in what could be knife-edge Brexit votes. However, Price apparently reiterated his party’s commitment to a second referendum, which doesn’t suggest it’s likely to back the Government.

He also issued the inevitable request for yet more devolved powers, this time a range of economic ‘tools’ and an expanded ability to borrow, and had a dig at the Labour-led Welsh Government for failing to exert adequate influence at Westminster.

In other Plaid news, a former nationalist member of the Welsh Assembly has avoided prison after pleading guilty to making indecent images of children.

Bradley mulling ‘external mediator’ for Northern Ireland

Karen Bradley is “actively considering” whether and how an external mediator could help to get the Province’s devolved settlement up and running again, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

The Northern Irish Secretary has been come in for fresh criticism after the Government once again ducked the prospect of direct rule, instead opting to grant civil servants the power to make decisions normally made by elected and accountable politicians.

Sam McBride, of the News Letter, reports that the local Attorney General has already had to stop them “literally making up criminal offences“, and questions remain as to how long Westminster can continue to put off taking up political responsibility for Northern Ireland – especially in light of concerted efforts by mainland MPs to drive through changes to sensitive areas of social legislation such as abortion and gay marriage.

Wishart urges Sturgeon to drop support for second referendum

The EU referendum has posed a number of strategic challenges for the Scottish National Party, the latest of which is what to do about the campaign for a rematch.

On the one hand, Brexit has struck a major blow to Scotland’s easiest path out of the Union – ‘independence in Europe’. For all that hardline remainers such as Guto Bebb still extol the old orthodoxy, it is greatly in the interest of the separatist parties to see the 2016 vote overturned.

Yet to do that would be to set a very dangerous precedent that a referendum result should be revisited and ratified by the electorate after the negotiations. The danger this poses to SNP aspirations is obvious.

This explains why a row has broken out this week amongst the normally iron-disciplined Nationalists. Pete Wishart, who now has the distinction of being the Party’s longest-serving MP, accused Nicola Sturgeon of undermining the independence campaign by backing a ‘People’s Vote’, campaigners for which have in turn urged the First Minister to distance herself from him.

In other Nationalist news, this week the party was forced to suspend a member after he authored a xenophobic and antisemitic blog which was shared by SNP social media channels, according to the Herald.

DUP challenged over Budget role

The Ulster Unionists have claimed that the Government has called the bluff of its Democratic Unionist allies, after the latter backed the Budget despite threats to withhold their support over the Irish backstop, the News Letter reports.

Lord Empey, who previously led the UUP and helped to forge its ill-fated alliance with the Conservatives at the 2010 election, said that the DUP were retreating with “their tail between their legs”.

In response Sammy Wilson, the DUP MP for East Antrim, has reiterated that his party might still withdraw support from the Prime Minister at a future date.

This comes as more details emerge about the Northern Irish party’s influence. A report in today’s Daily Mail indicates that regular high-level meetings between the DUP’s Commons leadership and senior Government figures, including David Lidington and Julian Smith, have been taking place on a monthly basis.

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